Found in Ethiopia in 1974, Lucy, an Australopithecus afarensis, lived about 3.2 million years ago. Her pelvis and legs show she walked on two feet, yet her brain was barely larger than a chimpanzee's. Walking upright came millions of years before big brains. Her nickname? A Beatles song playing at the dig camp.
Around 2300 BCE, Enheduanna, daughter of King Sargon of Akkad, became high priestess of the Moon god at Ur. She composed hymns to the goddess Inanna and put her name to them. She is the oldest person identified as the author of a literary work, about 1,500 years before Homer.
Squeeze Earth's 4.5 billion years into a single 24-hour day. Homo sapiens shows up around 11:59:54 p.m., roughly six seconds before midnight. All of written history, from Sumerian tablets to today, fits into the final tenth of a second. A cosmic blink.